


up a winding stair

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 06:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Vriska Serket learns to respect her elders. (Or: the worst tea party ever.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	up a winding stair

**Author's Note:**

> _The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,/And I’ve a many curious things to shew when you are there._ I wondered: just how _would_ one go about pushing Aranea Serket, anyway? So I wrote it. (Vriska is somewhat biased re: Karkat's merits as a leader.)

"Nobody takes it seriously," Vriska says. The Grand Parley was scheduled for high noon, whatever that means in the dream bubbles, to be held in the memory of one of the great libraries of Beforus. The invitations were handwritten. The directions were as clear as they could be, considering the logic of paradox space--clear enough for Vriska to follow, anyway. High ceilings, gleaming shelves, tea service and grubcakes for at least ten. No one's showed except the two of them. The only thing surprising thing about it is how unsurprised Aranea looks. 

"If that even makes you feel any better," she adds, "because who needs to play around with maps or look for dead alien ghosts when there's so much interesting interpersonal drama! Besides, someone else's dead ghost self is gonna get shanked." She's demolished half a plate of grubcakes, and she's not even going to ask where Aranea found the grubs for them. "Even, what's her fins--"

"Meenah," says Aranea. "She's taking it as seriously as she can. I promised her a lot of boonbucks if she'd come, but--well."

Vriska takes the plate with her while she walks, scanning the shelves. Beforus used the same alphabet and everything, and there's books she recognizes--same titles, different propaganda inside, probably. She'd ask Aranea if she was in the mood for an earful, but she's not; the wondering makes her brain itch. 

_Because you're a Light player,_ Aranea would say, in twenty times more words, _and Light isn't all about luck. It's also about knowledge, and Thieves are about the taking, the acquisition_ \--boring. Vriska still wants it. Aranea sips at her tea, so neat and composed in her waiting that it makes Vriska want to talk with her mouth full, to see her mortified. "Just like a seadweller, huh," she says, after she's done chewing, "if you can't solve the problem, stab it."

"We're going to have to fight sooner or later. Who else would you have as a general?"

Vriska's mind goes straight for Karkat, but Karkat isn't good for shit without Terezi pulling his strings. On principle, though: "Karkat." She goes for the other plate of grubcakes, and Aranea peers at her over her glasses, not disapprovingly, just questioning every choice Vriska's made that has led up to this moment, more and more like Kanaya by the second. "He got us to work together, and we're probably lamer than you guys were."

"On that one small matter," Aranea says, "I would beg to differ. The entire purpose of Alternia was to produce twelve trolls with the necessary skillsets to win Sgrub. Leave me at least one of the grubcakes?" She holds out a hand, and Vriska, startled into magnanimity, gives her two of the unbroken ones. "Architecture as your first conscious consideration. The martial mindset, completely absent on Beforus; the cultural meme that, while you were to become the best, most efficient killers you could be, you would one day have to work in a platoon--or die. I couldn't have dreamed up a better way to make the perfect players myself, though I've thought about it for billions of years. But the deck was still stacked against you."

"Way to be depressing."

"I didn't take into account the universe you made, of course." 

"You don't say." There isn't a third plate of grubcakes. Time to split.

"A Seer of Light _and_ a Knight of Time--but I'm getting off track," Aranea says. "You should tell me if I'm getting off track. Your Karkat and my Meenah are both warrior classes. She's a killer, or she could be a killer; he's meant to weaponize the bonds between people."

"Yeah, so, great," Vriska says. "Karkat for archgeneralissimo supreme. I'd start making posters, but, oh, wait, all my paper is covered in glowy cracks because I'm actually getting stuff done! Maybe next time. Good work, thanks for the treats, are we finished?"

"I would rather have a killer at the head of an army," Aranea says. Loud enough for the words to ring and echo in the vastness of the room--loud enough to turn Vriska's head. "Meenah was willing to kill us all to get what she wanted. Isn't that ruthlessness pleasing--"

"No, because I'm not nuts!"

"Are you?" Aranea says. "I wouldn't blame you if you were. Is she? I don't--"

"I'm leaving," Vriska says. 

Aranea pours a cup of tea and holds it out, and Vriska snatches it from her. "You were willing to sacrifice your entire team, too," Aranea says.

"And this is what I get," says Vriska. She passes the teacup from hand to hand while she tries to find a chair to pull up and sit in. Aranea's is the only one in the whole place. She did that on purpose--Vriska would have, at least. "You, in my afterlife."

"You want to leave, but you can't. You're compelled to stay here and keep arguing with me. I understand that it's normal, when confronted with one's ancestor. You can't look away. I could fix your arm for you, you know," Aranea says. Her hand glows Skaia-blue. "I could grow you a whole new one. Healing is just the recovery of stored information, after all."

If you can't fight it, play along until it slips up and relaxes its grip on you. Spider 101. She learned from the best. "Cool, but we don't have time," Vriska says. 

"That's not my aspect." Aranea hasn't raised her voice this whole time, and she stands up to her full height. The top of her head comes to Vriska's chin. Differences in nutrition, upbringing--Aranea could've eaten less or less well as a wiggler, or something. " _Our_ aspect. I'm what you would have been, if you'd grown up on Beforus," she says. "You're what I would have been, if I'd grown up on Alternia. Well--I did grow up on Alternia, and I was Mindfang, and isn't that exciting! I became a pirate."

"And who'd have thought--"

"But I made you," Aranea says, "in every sense of the word, Vriska, I made you."

She puts the glowy hand on Vriska's shoulder, right where the metal meets her skin: nothing creepy or weird about it, except for how intent Aranea looks. It sets Vriska's teeth on edge. "So you're Serket 1.0."

"It's sad to see my powers so greatly watered down in my third iteration. All you can do is control minds, and while that encompasses quite a lot in theory, you don't have much range, I'm afraid. But that's only because it's all you think you can do. It's all that's been useful to you, in your brief and--yes, brief and painful life. If you'd had access to your full range of abilities," she says, "you would be much more like me. Why, you could have empathy, telepathy, psychometry, the ability to plant suggestions in other trolls' minds. It's too soon for the former with you, and certainly too soon for the suggestions." 

She's hypnotic. She's guided Vriska to the chair and forced her to sit down. All that's left is for her to be wrapped up in silk and dissolved. "But you'd teach me," Vriska mutters, shaking her head to clear it. 

"Eventually. And, you know, if I re-grew your arm, the first thing I would have to do would be to remove the artificial limb. It would be painful, to say the least." Aranea sweeps Vriska's hair back and smooths it down, her short fingers catching on the snarls. The grubcakes are rocks in Vriska's stomach. She's not sweating, yet. "Not to mention the growing itself. It was very unfair of you to call Meenah 'crazy;' please don't do it again?"

"Whoops," Vriska says weakly, when Aranea steps away from her. By luck or by accident, she hasn't dropped the tea, and she takes a sip of it, then clears her throat. "My bad. I meant _homocidal maniac_."

"Much better," Aranea says. She pats Vriska's shoulder. "You'll do just fine."


End file.
